27 June 2010

The PyroManiacsdevote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "God's Thoughts and Ours," A sermon preached on a Thursday evening, 19 March 1868 at the Met Tab in London.

ome people seem to be always struggling to get away from the thought of one true personal God,—Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and All-in-all to his people. Those who deny the inspired record of the creation would have us believe that we are descended from monkeys, or from something with even less intelligence than an ape possesses; but I could gather no comfort from such a belief as that if it wore true. It fills me rather with pity or contempt for those who can be so foolish as to cherish such a delusion.

But when I come back to the revelation of the Bible concerning a personal God, a revelation which has been confirmed by my own spiritual experience, and when I realize that this personal God takes a special interest in me, and thinks of me with tender, loving, gracious consideration, then I lift up my hands in adoring wonder, and say, as David did, "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!"

Yes, there is great comfort in being able truthfully to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven;" and those who are really the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty find it to be their chief delight that he thinketh about them, and planneth all that is for their present and eternal good.

3 comments:

"..a revelation which has been confirmed by my own spiritual experience,"

Me too. The Word is what I must trust and understand, for it is the truth of God, and yet I have the Spirit of Christ in me: "And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us."

And:

"...you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God"

As a physics major I was surprised to be spared the ravings of a patent naturalistic professor. Actually, most of my physics profs were at least theistic if not professing Christians.

But I did become aware of the challenge of evolution to Biblical truth. I wasn't particularly mature in my faith at the time, but still had a desire for truth as my presupposition. So I determined to know what the truth was between what the bible said and what evolutionists were saying. I (proverbially) locked myself in the library and pored through the books that characterized the debate at the time.

I didn't care who was right, but I wanted to have an idea of the truth so that I had something to cling to. So I traced the arguments back to their philosophical mores and discovered that naturalism was untenable and creation was not only viable but exceptionally probable at key points.

The key is being willing to believe the truth even before you know what the truth is.

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